A Very Berry Christmas
by RosieZombified
Summary: Having seen all the decorations going up, Rukia's insistent upon Ichigo, friends, and family celebrating the season. Fluff, and IchiRuki-ness.


Obviously, I don't own BLEACH. That person is 久保帯人, and he's been doing a fairly decent job as of late (minus the trolling from chapters oh I don't know, 200 to 422, but everything since then's been fabulous..)

Ehm, I also don't own Christmas (or any other yom tov/holidays, for that matter)

**_Words to know:_**

_**Shinigami**- death god_

_**Nakama**- best friend/close-as-family-type-friend_

_**Tadaima**- pretty much "I'm home"_

_**Okaeri**- pretty much "Welcome home"_

_**Hotei-Osho**- a Buddhist priest with eyes on the back of his head that gives gifts to good children in the winter._

_**Urusai**- be quiet/shut up_

* * *

Ichigo shivered as he shuffled along the crowded, snow covered street. The bright-haired teenager scowled, grumbling slightly as he wondered where his dark-haired friend had disappeared off to. She'd said something about a shop, and he assumed she'd gone in, but he'd checked out the shops in the immediate vicinity without finding any sign of Kuchiki Rukia. "Damn shinigami… it's getting late, and it's freaking cold! Why'd I even come?" As if to remind him they were there, the four shopping bags hanging off of his arms seemed to gain extra weight, the dull pain in his arms making the boy groan even more. Until this year, he and his nakama had never exchanged Christmas gifts anyway- Chad wasn't really into the holiday thing, and Tatsuki was usually busy with either her family, or Orihime. To be honest, the only other two people he called friends were Keigo and Mizuiro (though the former's friend status was arguable, as much as he irked the ginger teenager.) His teeth chattered slightly, and he pulled his coat tighter around him as if that would help to take the edge off the biting cold. He glanced down at his watch and crossed his arms again, glancing about in search of Rukia.

Rukia had ditched Ichigo to grab his gift, saying she'd gone into one shop and slipping away quietly before he could follow her. She knew he'd be irked when she returned, but it would all be worth it in the end. She'd spent the best part of the past two months searching for something to buy for Ichigo's Christmas, finding it extremely difficult to track down anything. Being over one hundred years old… and female, meant she was rather out of touch, and thusly out of luck, when it came to buying things for teenage boys. Particularly ones as unique as Ichigo. Unfortunately, in Soul Society they didn't have things like Christmas, which was a fairly modern thing in Japan, so she was out of luck on that front too. She'd only heard of Christmas upon questioning her ginger friend why neighbours had suddenly begun to adorn their home with all sorts of lovely decorations. Being that this was Rukia, she'd been quite insistent that the Kurosaki family celebrated Christmas in a big way that year. Isshin and Yuzu had been absolutely thrilled over the concept, the former having gone out to buy a rather large tree for the front room, and the latter going to dig out some very old Christmas ornaments that had evidently seen Christmas last around the time Isshin became a widower.

"I GIVE UP. OI, RUKIA, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, I'M GOING HOME." he called out to her, annoyed that it had now been over twenty minutes since she'd taken off. He'd waited too long now. As the snow that had been softly falling earlier became more persistent and more consistent, Ichigo'd had enough of waiting, and was quite ready to call it a night. A small hand grabbed his, and he glanced down, his permanent scowl more severe than usual. "There you are."

"I told you I had to go to a few shops!" Rukia replied indignantly, ignoring the eye roll Ichigo gave her.

"I checked every shop in the area! You were nowhere! And! You said one shop! You said, 'I want to go to that shop for a moment.' Besides, what would you want with a construction shop, a consignment and vintage wear shop, a soap shop, a 7-11, a lingerie shop, a kitchen supplies shop, two flower shops, and a cosplay maid café? There's nothing that our friends would want in those!" he said, calling her bluff. She simply pushed the small bag further into a larger one of the several hanging off her own petite arms.

"I went a bit further than just here. There were some shops a couple of streets over I wanted to see." she answered, beaming brightly, ignoring his scowl.

"You're up to something, midget, I can tell."

"You'll never find out, _Ichigo._" she said, emphasizing his name to demonstrate that she meant the homonym for his name, the bright red coloured fruit. "Anyway, let's go. I thought you were all content to leave just now?"

"I was… am." With that, he found himself pulled along in the direction of his home. He felt slightly inclined to pull his hand away, not uncomfortable with the contact, but not entirely comfortable with it. He let her pull him regardless, though it painted a deep chagrin on his already pink cheeks.

* * *

"Tadaima."

As they entered from the cold, they were greeted enthusiastically by Ichigo's father, with a warm cup of white hot chocolate which he'd apparently found earlier in the week, at some sort of shop selling Western foods.

"Okaeri, Ichi-nii, Rukia-nee," Yuzu exclaimed from where she and Karin knelt in the front room, before getting back to decorating the tree, which was already bedecked about half way, with all matter of ornaments, from candy canes, to brightly coloured spheres, to characters he supposed must have been from some anime he or his sisters had liked when they were smaller. At the top of the tree was a star he recognized, having made it with his mother at some point before Karin and Yuzu were born. He raised the hand that wasn't holding a hot beverage to wipe away the small tear that had formed. Ichigo wondered to himself how glad his mother would be to see them celebrating the holiday so exuberantly this year- she'd always instilled a firm belief in Santa Claus (being that the Kurosaki family were not particularly religious, and that the concept of Hotei-Osho's having eyes on the back of his head frightened Karin and Yuzu back then)

"Are you going to help us decorate, Ichi-nii?" Karin asked from behind the tree, where she was hanging a small photo-frame ornament of he and his sisters making funny faces at the camera.

"Yeah, hang on. I've just got to put these away. Rukia, you coming?" he said, glancing toward the dark-haired girl upon his inquiry.

"Are you kidding? Let you go through all the lovely gifts I've bought for our nakama and have you put your name on them? No, I'll put everything somewhere else."

"Whatever. Don't think you're not being suspicious." she ignored him and smiled the smile she reserved for her classmates.

As Ichigo trudged toward his room in a slightly surly attitude, he found himself smirking at the same time, pleased at Rukia's decision. Though it was true he'd bought Christmas gifts for all of his friends, as well as obligatory year end gifts for his teachers and various other acquaintances (he'd thought to buy Urahara, Tessai, Ururu, and Jinta giri gifts this year.) He'd spent a bit more on the gift(s) to be given to the dark-haired Shinigami in the front room, than on anyone else. To say he loved her would be inaccurate as of yet, but there was something more than friendship, he knew, though he wasn't sure just what. It probably wasn't right to love her anyway, considering she was at the very least, over a century older than him, even if she didn't show her age.

He opened the door with the number 15 hung on a sign, and set down the shopping bags on his bed, emptying out the first three without much ceremony, and even less regard for the "please handle carefully" notes on some of the packages. It wasn't that he didn't care about everything in those particular bags, it was just that… well, he cared more about the contents of the fourth bag at the moment. Ironically enough, most of the contents weren't breakable at all.

"Oi, Ichigo, hurry up, will you?" came Rukia's deep voice from the doorway.

"Hey, I thought you weren't coming up here!" he said, quickly shoving the bag under the bed, in a fashion that had Rukia raising an eyebrow and smirking herself.

"I'm the suspicious one, huh?"

"Urusai. I'll catch you up in a minute." he said, scowling and waving her away. He kicked it further underneath the bed before crossing his room and shutting the door securely behind him as he exited it.

"Onii-san! Hurry up!" Yuzu whined, just as Ichigo made his appearance in the front room, and grabbed a box of ornaments, blowing the dust off as he did.

* * *

A/N: I'm not at any point having Ichigo explain the religious connotations to Christmas, simply because for the majority of Japan, there are none. It's not even a national holiday lol. School on Christmas *legasp.* It's a day where friends give each other small gifts, and parents (as santa claus) give small gifts to their children. Or if you prefer, a Buddhist priest with eyes on the back of his head does. Oh, and there's a Christmas cake involved. But yeah. That's about it :3 Anywho. Fluff to come later ^^


End file.
